Portugal and North Macedonia meet in the FIFA World Cup Path C play-off final on Tuesday.
The winner will book one of three remaining places at the 2022 tournament in Qatar, with the World Cup draw due to take place on Friday 1 April.
How did the teams get here?
Serbia denied Portugal top spot in Group A with a last-day 2-1 win in Lisbon. Fernando Santos’s side then beat Turkey 3-1 in the play-offs. North Macedonia edged out Romania to finish second behind Germany in Group J. They beat the Germans 2-1 in Duisburg in qualifying then pulled off an even bigger shock by eliminating Italy in the play-off semis.
Possible line-ups
Portugal: Diogo Costa; João Cancelo, Pepe, Fonte, Guerreiro; Danilo, Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Otávio; Ronaldo, Jota
North Macedonia: Dimitrievski; S. Ristovski, Velkovski, Musliu, Alioski; Churlinov, Ademi, Bardi, Elmas; M. Ristovski, Trajkovski
What the coaches say
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Fernando Santos, Portugal coach: “Everyone knew what was going to happen except the North Macedonian people. This is a final and finals are very difficult. I have been involved in plenty of them so I know what I’m talking about. In the end, these are games are there to be won. We’ll approach the game with the same respect as we showed Turkey.”
Blagoja Milevski, North Macedonia coach: “We won against one of the best teams in the world [Italy]. We won’t stop here; we have one last step to get to the World Cup. We are well on our way to confirming why we are among the top 20 teams in Europe.”
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